theblackbottom

Source: The Guardian
In 2009, businessman Femi Akinde needed to travel quickly across Nigeria. Without immediate access to the internet, it took him a day to book a plane ticket. Finding a number to make a phone reservation took time; connecting – on erratic phone lines – even longer; and bank forms had to be filled in [...]

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read~Mary McCleod Bethune
Once you learn how to read, you will be forever free!~Frederick Douglass

REVIEW Natalie Hopkinson, a contributing editor of TheRoot.com, lectures at Georgetown University and directs the Future of the Arts and Society project as a fellow of the Interactivity Foundation. She is the author, [...]

Source: VOA
SILINGA, Ghana – Economist Jeffrey Sachs unveiled his new Millennium Village Tuesday, in Silinga, north Ghana.  The Millennium Villages Projectis based on the belief that poor villagers are stuck in a “poverty trap” and if given enough resources, they will become self-sufficient. Sachs’ critics say the demonstration is neither scientific nor sustainable.
Nabari village lies on [...]

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read~Mary McCleod Bethune
Once you learn how to read, you will be forever free!~Frederick Douglass

REVIEW Nuruddin Farah was born November 24th 1945 in Baidoa, in what is now the Republic of Somalia. Farah is the author of several novels, including From a Crooked Rib, Links [...]

There are more than 100 million farmers in East Africa. Many of them have the desire, and the money, to use technology to improve their crop yields.
There are an estimated 100 million farmers in East Africa, and 27 million in Kenya alone. Many not only have the desire to be better farmers, but also [...]

Source: Colorlines.com
Wall Street is at again.
The nation’s financial sector is on a crusade to dominate an irreplaceable African resource that the world increasingly needs: massive tracts of open land available for large scale industrial farming. The pace of land purchases is flying so furiously that it is now commonly referred to [...]

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read~Mary McCleod Bethune

Once you learn how to read, you will be forever free!~Frederick Douglass
REVIEW John Dramani Mahama is a Ghanaian politician who has been President of Ghana since July 2012. He was the Vice President of Ghana from 2009 to 2012, and he took [...]

Source: IPS
Tomson Chikowero was ashamed of his job. He did not want anyone finding out what he did to earn a living, so he used to wake up early every morning and leave his home in Hatfield, a residential suburb in Zimbabwe’s capital city Harare, under the cover of darkness.
And he would [...]

Source: New York Times
John Atta Mills, the president of Ghana, died on Tuesday at a military hospital in the capital, Accra, five months short of finishing his first term in office. He was 68.
News of his death came on state-run television. The government gave no cause of death, but Mr. Atta Mills [...]

Source: VOA
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma made history Sunday by becoming the first female elected to lead the African Union Commission.
The African Union’s new chief replaces Gabonese incumbent Jean Ping, who led  the 54-member organization since 2008. The 63-year-old Dlamini-Zuma is the former wife of South African President Jacob Zuma and recently served as his [...]